No. of Foreign Nationals Residing in Korea Exceeds 2 Mil. in 2016

June 22, 2017 08:16|June 22, 2017 13:04

Of the foreign nationals residing in Korea, those from Vietnam were ranked second after China. The number of foreign nationals staying in Korea surpassed 2 million for the first time last year, accounting for about 4 percent of the total population of 51 million.

The Ministry of Justice published on June 21 the 2016 statistical yearbook on foreigner populations. The total number of foreigners living in Korea last year was 2.04 million out of 51.69 million. This is more than double that of 910,000 recorded 10 years ago. In 2015, the figure was 1.9 million.

The figures by nationality were Chinese (1,016,607, 49.6%), Vietnam (149,384, 7.3%), the United States (140,222, 6.8%), Thailand (100,860, 4.9%), the Philippines (56,980, 2.8%), Uzbekistan (54,490, 2.7%). The number of Vietnamese residents was third largest back in 2006, but has since rapidly gained to take the second place.

The number of people who moved in and out of the country last year was 79,987,974, up 2.2 times from 35,851,121 in 2006. During the same period, the number of Korean nationals who left the country rose 1.9 times from 11,833,511 to 22,659,640 while that for foreigners who entered the country increased 2.8 times from 6,241,256 to 17,418,307.